Toshiba recognition processor helps drivers

PARIS - Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. said it has added Visconti 3 to its series of image recognition processors aimed specifically at automotive applications.

The Visconti series is used in camera-based vision systems for advanced driver assistance systems. Toshiba claimed it detects and recognizes lanes, vehicles, traffic lights, signs and pedestrians in real time, both day and night, and processes image data from multiple camera inputs frame-by-frame and then outputs results to an LCD panel.

Toshiba said the Visconti 3, part number TMPV7528XBG, integrates an ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore to facilitate the connection to other automotive systems, including navigation, smartphone, driver assistance and the Cloud.

The A9 CPU core includes a single/double-precision floating point unit that is claimed to improve performance of image processing by handling the mathematical computations required to analyze large volumes of image data from the video source, frame-by-frame in real time, in some of the algorithms.

Visconti processor applicationsClick on image to enlarge

Visconti system organization

Toshiba said it expects that samples of the Visconti 3, TMPV7528XBG, will be available in April 2013.

The drivers' assist is a good way to build consumers' confidence to self driving cars. I hope there are more cars using Visconti 3 or similar product. BTW, does Toshiba have patent protection to Visconti?